It was just a glance, I had told myself one day.
Gave it a time and it turned into something more than a glance. Much much more than that.
It turned into a staring contest from across the room. Until he turned away and chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief.
It turned into a brief hands squeezing in a packed elevator. He would give me a smirk before stepping away first.
It even turned into stolen kisses in an empty hallway. A brief touch on the lips but enough to keep a warm ember inside my little cursed heart.
“I love you,” he whispered one day in a quiet of the night. His voice was so low and raspy for a second I thought I was imagining it.
But he tightened his embrace around me and pulled me even closer, as if we still had a space between us.
I put my face in the crook of his neck, feeling the warmth of him, the beat of his jugular.
I wanted to say it back. I really wanted to say it back. But my tongue was tied. The words frightened me.
“I know,” I told him instead.
He didn’t say anything anymore but buried his face on the top of my head.
If I said the words back, out loud, the devil would turn around.
This intoxicating smell I breathed in. This warmth of these two tough hands around me. This body I held so tight keeping me alive. And this love I would forever preserve in my silence, would be taken away without mercy.
Just like everything else I had before.
So, I blinked back my tears and prayed in my heart, “Let me be enough for this person in this lifetime.”
xxLAC